FIFA cancels thousands of Vancouver hotel room bookings, but prices remain sky-high
FIFA cancelled approximately 15,000 nightly room bookings in Vancouver over the full course of its tournament duration from June 11 to July 19.
Despite the fact that these rooms are now back to general inventory at major downtown hotels, the British Columbia Hotel Association does not expect “any significant change in hotel rates.”
“But the good news is, we are ready to welcome the world, and we have the hotel availability to do so,” said Paul Hawes, the British Columbia Hotel Association’s president and CEO, in an email to Daily Hive Urbanized.
He said that this type of room release is “standard practice for large-scale events.” Organizers tend to adjust their allocations as they approach the event, which is now less than three months away.
“In this case, FIFA has released a significant portion of its previously held hotel room blocks in downtown Vancouver, with the volume appearing higher than typically expected.”
Hawes said this is happening across other host cities in North America.
How does it impact hotels?
Hawes said that the room cancellations “displaced” some business, but that the World Cup is happening during an already busy time for Vancouver.
Not only is FIFA expected to draw in 200,000 visitors, but the city is also gearing up for a record-breaking number of cruise ship passengers to stop by.
According to data and insights from CoStar, Vancouver is expecting a hotel occupancy of 90 per cent.
“Vancouver is a world-class destination and is performing well for FIFA,” Hawes said.
Daily Hive Urbanized has previously reported on hotel room costs during FIFA, finding prices listed at $1,723, $1,242, and $2,325 a night.
Alex Howell, Airbnb’s policy lead for Canada, recently told Daily Hive Urbanized in an email that there could be “an accommodation shortfall of 70,000 nights” during the games, which would leave up to 15,000 visitors without accommodation on peak days.
Even when Vancouver isn’t hosting one of the world’s biggest sporting events, the city still faces a severe hotel shortage. Despite a surge in tourists in recent years, the city has the same number of hotel rooms it had in 2002 and a 10,000-hotel-room gap.
Vancouver has over 5,800 hotel rooms across 29 projects in its development pipeline. But with a challenging development environment due to rising construction and borrowing costs, there’s a risk that many of the projects won’t go through to completion.
Daily Hive Urbanized reached out to FIFA and didn’t hear back before publication.